More Than One

Navigate the world? I still haven’t figured that out. Most influential? I can’t just choose one. There are just too many. Its dizzying. So many perspectives that give me a kind of funhouse rush of confusion. I don’t know which way’s up or down, or which direction to go, next. Like I am forever standing at a crossroads of ideas and perspectives. But, that’s part of the fun.

The Diary of Anne Frank: I read when I was close to Ann’s age and couldn’t imagine living through something like that. It made me sympathetic and sometimes angry in a way no picture or museum has done. Accounts of bravery and sacrifice, evil and betrayal to rival any fiction book.

The Classic Slave Narratives: Left the same kind of impression. I cringed and recoiled more than once when reading these vivid, personal stories. It is one thing to understand cognitively how terrible it was, another to almost feel it (even if on just a superficial level, as reading does not even come close to the actual experience).

Mama Lola: Took a mysterious and unknown Religion, and made it feel familiar. Showed me another way to try to understand and navigate the world. A way to cope with suffering and find strength in faith and each other.

Firebringer, The Sight, and Fell: A series that all takes place in the same forest. ‘Firebringer’, is told from the perspective of a deer, and his kind hates the wolves that hunt them. The Sight and Fell, make a shift to wolf perspective. Suddenly, I sympathized with predator instead of prey. Neither is right or wrong, really. They are just…trying to survive.

Enders Game: Where a child genius goes to space to become a solder, in a battle against an alien aggressor that is fought video-game style. Nothing is as it seems in this novel, including the perceived aggression of the enemy. I suppose life can be like that, too. One revelation, one tiny change or bit of new information, can change everything.

Hominids Series: A parallel universe is discovered where Neanderthals became the dominant species on the planet, instead of Homo Sapiens. I loved the subtle but important differences between the two species of intelligent primates. Like the fact that Neanderthals do not cry, but still display the same depth of sadness in their eyes.

All of these books have expanded my mind and reminded me to always try to see the world from every possible angle and viewpoint. For me, there can't be only one. Each book adds to a mosiac that creates a bigger picture, and my mosiac is nowhere near complete.